First Star I See Tonight
by StarWarrior72
Summary: This is a little fic that's been drifting about my head for a while. The metaphorical star is Luke's presence in Vader's dark life. Vader is without suit, and he's been searching for Luke for years. Takes place after ESB.


Vader's awareness was stretched thin, filament across the entire galaxy. He wasn't certain that he would sense Luke if the boy were to walk up behind him. Still, he directed the few crosshairs that were his presence into the battle at hand. Chaotic emotions of darkness, fear, anger, and hatred coursed from the battleground, and far from bringing him strength, they confused him, making his head throb.

He wanted nothing more than to _find_ his son so he could drag the boy home, kicking and screaming, if necessary, and get some real sleep. He needed the rest. Exhaustion made him lethargic, but he couldn't bear to retreat into his own awareness and risk missing a vital clue of his son's presence. For a split second, he thought he sensed something, and he tried to lock down on it, but all he caught was a terrible backlash, as though the gossamer thin threads he'd trailed throughout the galaxy had turned to elastic as they broke, springing back towards him.

Catching himself on a console, he sincerely hoped that Luke was faring better, wherever he was. Again, there was a ripple through the Force, as if the boy had surfaced from the depths where he was hiding for just long enough to go back under. Vader tried to find the center of the ripples, but the overlapping presences of so many emotion racked people hid them again.

He snarled in frustration. If only Luke would come home! If only the boy would see how much _easier_, how much _safer,_ life would be with his father. Vader wouldn't begrudge the boy a parent's love. Not now, not ever. But Luke was still running, across the galaxy, away from his father, and the home he could have had.

He turned to a nearby tactical readout, and tried to focus on it instead, needing to steady and calm his thoughts. He found himself watching in amazement, stunned inside and out as _something_ exploded across the readout in brilliant blue, and simultaneously Luke's presence became gloriously clear, and _close_. He ran to the viewport, staring in amazement at what looked like the site of a bomb being set off. There were troopers lying stunned all around, and rebels blinking in confusion, then quickly racing towards their ships.

Luke was not visible. Vader pulled back his awareness from the rest of the galaxy, sighing at the comparative comfort of only sensing a single planet's worth of emotions and actions. He slipped into the Force more completely, but he could barely sense Luke. He thought he sensed a flicker, as though Luke was trying to speak to his father, but it was gone long before he could truly be sure.

_Luke?_ he asked, but there was no answer. Luke's presence seemed to dim still further. Vader reached for it again, just as it flickered and died. Vader felt only an odd, detached calm. He walked back to the tactical display. He found the center of the explosion, and walked towards it, certain that at its center, he would find his son. Unless, he shivered, all that he would find was what was _left_ of the boy.

As he walked down the ramp from the ship, he felt the detachment fading, the calm fleeing like rabbits before the wolf of his sudden horror.

_Luke_ was out there! But his _presence_ wasn't! Why hadn't Vader run the moment he'd sensed it? What kind of father _was_ he?

He raced across the broken terrain, racing past hundreds, perhaps even thousands of troopers ranging from stunned to brutally murdered. He felt he should stop, and make certain that at least some would survive, but there were crews coming, and it wasn't in his duties to even _care!_

It _was_ his duty to care about his son. To care about the helpless, delicate little person he'd helped bring into the galaxy! The child he'd abandoned as a baby, unwittingly, it was true, but he'd _abandoned_ Luke! Tried to forget him. And then, upon learning what his baby had made of himself, he had maimed him! Brutally, and cruelly.

He could tell that he was getting close to the center of the explosion, here, buildings had been shattered by the force. Finally, he found himself on the lip of a crater. Kneeling in the center of the hole was a slumped form, and the ground around him still smoked slightly. Vader threw himself into the air, landing next to the boy with all the grace of a wounded panther.

"Luke," he gasped out.

Luke was still breathing, he saw. He seemed to be aware that his father was beside him, because his head lolled to the side, and his eyes rolled up to meet Vader's. Vader saw clouding in his son's eyes, and he reached out to feel for a pulse in Luke's wrist. He felt a desperate tide of blood in the boy's arm.

"You're alive," he said finally, gently touching the boy's face. Luke barely moved, and Vader couldn't sense him in the Force. However, as he knelt in the pit of the explosion, he couldn't bring himself to care. Luke seemed… alive, if not well, and Vader was so glad to be kneeling next to him that he smiled at the young face, whose expression was slowly changing to a small smile.

Luke nuzzled his hand slowly, weakly. His eyes closed, but Vader still felt no fear. Luke was all right. Luke was miraculously alive, and for once not fighting. And Vader silently promised both of them that there was no safer place for him in the galaxy.

"So… tired…" Luke said softly, his voice shaking with fatigue.

Vader nodded, petting his son's hair, "If that explosion was you, I can see why."

"You saw it?" he asked, and he seemed to be comforted by the thought.

"I think everyone on the planet saw it," Vader promised. Luke was starting to slide forward from his kneeling position, and Vader carefully steadied him.

"Sleep," Luke begged.

"When we're home, you may sleep. Will you come quietly?" Vader asked, hoping that the question didn't have to be anything more than a joke.

Much to his relief, Luke giggled tiredly, "I think I'll fight my way out, thanks."

Vader carefully arranged the young man's arms around his neck, and he knew Luke was already drifting off on his shoulder. He lifted his son with exquisite care, protecting him in his arms, cradled as a parent was supposed to carry a child.

Luke gave a tired yawn, and Vader leaned the boy out from his body to look into his cloudy eyes, which threatened to close at any moment.

"Not yet," he reprimanded.

"But-," Luke complained.

"Stay awake, Luke. We need to talk to a medic before we decide if it's safe for you to sleep."

He began to climb back out of the pit one armed. Luke muttered something uncharitable about medics, but Vader knew he was making an effort to stay awake.

"That's my boy," he said, and Luke's arms tightened around his neck. He scrambled the last few inches and carried the boy carefully back across the battlefield. In his arms, Luke's body relaxed, slipping into the comfort of being cared for, and he let the boy slip before himself again.

"Luke," he said.

Luke pouted, "But-."

Vader shook his head, "No, Luke. We're nearly back to the base. We'll find a medic there, and then you can sleep."

"Probably," Luke groaned. Then, as though he was trying to keep himself awake through the conversation which was so difficult for him in his current state of awareness, "My friends, did they?"

"They made it away," Vader promised, secretly vowing to release them if they hadn't.

Luke nodded slowly, and his eyelids drooped again. Vader was beginning to wonder if it was worth the bother of trying to keep the boy awake. They were nearly back to base, and if there was anything Luke needed more desperately than sleep, he would be very surprised. Still, it would be better for Luke to have kept himself awake a few minutes longer than necessary than to go to sleep and slip into a coma.

As they crossed the last few feet to the base of the ramp to the medical ship, he sensed the stares, and knew he must have looked strange, cradling the tired young man dressed in brilliant orange like a toddler. He ignored the stares and carried his son up onto the ship. Luke protested quietly as he was placed onto a cot. A doctor returned to them and carefully lifted Luke's eyelids, scanning his eyes and taking a blood sample, from which Luke retreated slightly.

As the doctor left, Vader gently stroked his son's hair, and Luke struggled to keep his eyes open. Vader felt an overpowering pride in his son. Luke had been dealt such a difficult hand in his only chance at life, but here he was, smiling through the pain of tiredness. He had done a good job. An incredible job. Luke would follow his destiny, Vader realized, no matter what obstacles he had to face, and he realized with pain that the destiny Obi-Wan had sent a fragile child towards was a brutal path, and that Luke would walk it diligently, whether or not he had help or support.

Vader wondered if it might be easier for him to change his own destiny than to try again to ask Luke to change his. What kept him with the Sith? Luke seemed to have undying loyalty to his friends, and to the will of the Force he perceived, but what did Vader have to be dedicated to anymore.

The doctor came back and slipped an IV drip into Luke's wrist, allowing him to sleep. Luke was tired, he told Vader, and he had burned almost every calorie in his body. Luke was asleep beside him before the medic had finished speaking.

Vader stood beside the cot, holding Luke's hand tightly. The young man shuffled closer to him, and he perched awkwardly on the edge of the bed. Luke nestled right up against his thigh, and Vader smiled. There was an expression of such comfort on his face that Vader felt it was almost wrong to move. He didn't want to stand, and leave the tired child alone. He looked towards the cockpit, where he would usually stand, silently pressuring the pilot and co-pilot.

They didn't need him up there. They knew how to fly the ship. And Luke knew perfectly well how to sleep, of course, he told himself. But the duty that gripped him was the one of staying by his sleeping son's bed. After all, he thought as his son nestled even closer against him, this was clearly where Luke wanted him.

He stroked Luke's hair in silence as the ship raised. Luke had stilled in his sleep, save an occasional shuffle as though the cheap cot was making him uncomfortable.

The boy Vader smiled down at was _his_, he remembered joyfully. Luke had finally come home, his wife's little boy was safe at home. Luke looked so perfect asleep, his face a clear slate, ready for any emotion, though Vader felt as though it was most likely to be a smile. In fact, the corners of Luke's mouth were already slightly curled up.

He felt a bump as the ship landed, and a medic came and pushed Luke's cot into the ship. Vader followed alongside him until they were in the hospital and he was allowed to gently move Luke onto a better cot, and was told that Luke would be kept safe and comfortable and he could go home.

He wanted to argue that he should stay by his son's side, but he could feel himself starting to drift from side to side in his own tiredness, and he had to admit that he probably did need to return home for sleep.

He returned home and ate before going to bed, falling into an unusually deep and peaceful sleep. Perhaps it was because he knew how safe his son was, and was already looking forward to collecting the boy again the next day.

When Vader awoke in the morning, he felt a small, warm body pressed against his back. For a moment he lay still, not wanting to disturb her. Then he remembered suddenly that it couldn't _possibly_ have been Padmé, and he sat bolt upright, glaring at the person in horror. As he had feared, the person was Luke. He watched as Luke's serene face frowned slightly, and he shifted closer to where Vader had lain moments before, as if searching for his lost heat.

In spite of himself, Vader smiled. He carefully tucked the blankets around his son's body. Realizing that allowing the boy to sleep on, he woke the boy.

Luke blinked tiredly up at his father, but the clouding had left his eyes. thinking of the changes to Luke that his Force explosion had brought about Vader realized that he could faintly sense his son once more.

"Why are you here?" he demanded.

"Isn't this home?" Luke asked, perplexed.

"This is my home," Vader informed his son, wondering what had brought on the sudden confusion. Wasn't in obvious to Luke that he was still supposed to be in hospital? Wasn't it abundantly clear that the hospital had been treating him as a prisoner as well, that they would be panicking at having lost Vader's son?

"Then what's the problem?" Luke asked, hugging his pillow and resting his head on it.

"The problem," Vader said forcefully, "Is that you're supposed to still be in the hospital. I suppose you simply tore the IV out of your arm and blundered around until you found my castle?"

"It wasn't that hard," Luke said innocently, "The second tallest spire, just like I thought it would be. Besides, I could sense you. Can I please go back to sleep now?"

"Luke!" Vader exclaimed, "This is not to be taken so lightly!"

"Why not? I'm home now. I'm as safe as I've ever been. If it's the IV you're worried about, it was almost empty."

With a snarl of annoyance, Vader hugged his son very tightly, "You are as careless with your safety as I am."

Luke wholeheartedly returned the hug, "Father, I can't feel the Force very well."

"You've exhausted your use of the Force. It'll return. For now, you should eat, and then I'll allow you to sleep some more."

"I'm not hungry," Luke protested, "That IV must have got almost two days' worth of nutrients into me. Can't I please go back to sleep?"

Vader sighed. Caring for Luke would have been so much easier if he couldn't back up his own suggestions, if he had raised the boy to believe that he knew everything. But he hadn't. And if Luke was comfortable otherwise, he should sleep for longer.

"Fine," he said, ensuring once more that Luke was tightly wrapped in the blankets.

"Thanks," Luke mumbled, already closing his eyes, and drifting off with the speed and ease of one with a perfectly clear conscience. Vader smiled at him in exasperation again. Of all the children in the galaxy, of course his was the one who could sleep so easily, who could be confused at why his father was annoyed that he had run away from the hospital, who would wear himself out completely in a single act of bravery to save everyone he cared for.

Looking at the peaceful, sleeping face, Vader sighed to himself. He had nothing better to do. He slipped back into bed beside his son, carefully wrapping his arms around the sleeping boy, who nestled closer and sighed in his sleep. Vader pressed his face into the boy's hair and fell asleep again.


End file.
